


La Agonia

by arrozconmangos



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Comfort No Hurt, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Hale Family Feels, Past Trauma (Referenced), Post-3A
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:52:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrozconmangos/pseuds/arrozconmangos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a kid, Derek had always been building little ‘wolf dens’ as his mother would call them. Safe places like this that would pause time and make the world go away for a little while. </p>
            </blockquote>





	La Agonia

There's someone outside the door. 

Derek rolls over, covers pulled up right around his ears and waits for a knock. Or for the door to be kicked in. 

When neither of those things happen, he sighs, burrows deeper into the couch and closes his eyes. 

Later, as he's drifting back to sleep and his mind goes hazy and soft, he remembers those footsteps, that heartbeat, that faintest scent of bar soap as Stiles.

\---

Derek flies with Cora down to Heredia, where she’d been taking classes at _la Universidad Nacional_. She says she finished high school early and began classes at the college a year ago. She says she's been staying with some good people. The story of how she ended up in Central America to begin with is filtered by her age when it happened, watered down to vague impressions. 

When pressed further, Cora shrugs and snarks, "You know, trauma affects your memory, too."

Derek knows. Knows of the memories he's missing like cliffs in his mind, entire chunks of time shaken loose like ice cubes from a tray.

He doesn't ask her anymore questions.

\---

Derek goes to the little bookstore on the west side every two weeks to trade in his old paper backs for new material. The next time he goes, he knows immediately upon returning that Stiles has been in the building. 

He sniffs around a bit but there's no note on the door or anywhere else so he shrugs it off as Stiles being... Stiles. 

Sometimes the loft gets claustrophobic. There's no where to rest, nowhere to look that isn't contaminated with violence and hurt.

He got rid of the bed. The rest of the furniture got moved upstairs where he can sleep sometimes, on the couch, with his back against the wall.

He takes one of his new books and crawls out onto the fire escape where he can sit with the sun on his feet and the cool brick solid at his back.

\---

Cora has an entire family. They're a dark- haired bunch that she blends into seamlessly as they cook together in a small, tiled kitchen. 

Cora's Spanish is graceful and smooth. 

Derek studied the language for the two years of high school he actually completed.

He can't make out a single word.

When they call him to the dinner table, they stumble on his name and pronounce it _dar-ach._

Derek doesn't know whether to laugh or be sick.

Cora sputters out a startled laugh and then goes around the table, pointing with her fork and making everyone say his name until they have it right.

She applauds them at the end and elbows Derek until he joins in.

Then, the whole family is singing him happy birthday for no reason he can tell other than that the _tios_ have already had too much Imperial and the kids just think its fun.

Cora flings her arms around him at the end of the song. 

It’s the first time they’ve actually hugged in almost seven years.

\---

The third time he’s in the building, Derek catches Stiles. 

He gets up and flings his door open to Stiles standing there, like a deer in the headlights on the landing.

He’s carrying a large thermos in one hand and clutches the straps of his backpack with the other.

The stand-off lasts a whole two seconds before Stiles raises the thermos in greeting. “Uh, hello!”

Derek sighs. “What are you doing here?”

Stiles shifts on his feet and glances up and down the stairs as he stutters, “Well... I was just... I’ve been working on, um, a thing and how are you anyway?” He squints at Derek, face morphing into something like concern.

Derek reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. A headache is hiding there, just the faintest glow of an ache. 

“Stiles, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I, um...”

“What is the problem? What do you need?” Derek enunciates carefully.

Stiles steps back. “Oh. I don’t need anything. There’s no problem.”

Derek raises his eyebrows.

Stiles grins. “I’ve just been working on something upstairs. It’s not totally ready, but I was getting anxious to show you anyway.” 

He turns to continue up the steps, like he just expects Derek to follow.

And Derek is curious, but his learned aloofness, some innate weirdness that he has takes over and makes him hesitate.

Stiles just turns, quirks a smile at him, and grabs his arm.

\---

On Derek’s last day before his flight, Cora takes him to church. 

It’s a one hour bus trip to a neighboring city, where a steeple rises up over everything else, a beacon. 

Cora guides him up the stairs and through the doors. There, she pauses, taking in the whole of the church. “La Agonia,” she whispers.

Derek rolls the name of the church over his tongue. In another language, it’s poetic. 

The church is crowded and damp. Cora lets him slide into a pew at the back, behind the rest of the parishioners. Lining the aisles are figures, life-sized statues draped in robes. At the front of the church, a neon cross is illuminated. 

Derek bows his head and lets the service wash over him. Cora doesn’t participate, but listens intently throughout. 

It’s a quiet, calming hour, at the end of which Derek realizes his eyes have slid closed. He feels safe here. This place is safe. 

Cora will be and has been safe here.

Derek hooks an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close for a moment, mumbles into her hair. “I’m so proud of you.”

Cora just smiles as the church empties of people and then pulls him to the back of the church where there are rows of burning, red candles. 

In the corner, on the top row, she points to one. “For Boyd.” The one next to that. “For Erica.” Next to that. “For Laura.” 

She moves down the row of candles, reciting names, like tiny wooden crosses at the roadside, until Derek catches her hand.

Together, they light a new candle. 

“For the living.”

 

\---

Stiles leads them all the way upstairs and through the roof access door. On the roof, it’s dark and quiet. The rushing of wind blocks out all the city noise from the streets below. 

Stiles turns the corner around the stairwell to the northern corner of the roof. 

Derek stops. He’s only been up here once before and it definitely didn’t look like this at that time.

There’s a hammock strung up between the edge of the roof and the stairwell access wall. The roof of the stair access has been extended somehow, with plywood and tarps to cover a worn armchair and a small table with a lantern on it. There’s a pile of blankets set on a milk crate next to that. Warm, white lights are strung up along the edge of the roof, making the entire space glow. 

Stiles points to a giant fern that’s taken over the corner of the roof ledge. “I got you a plant.”

Derek stares. “You did all of this?”

Stiles shrugs. “It’s not much, really. I just... wanted a safe place, I guess. A hideaway.”

Derek nods. As a kid, he’d always been building little ‘wolf dens’ as his mother would call them. Safe places like this that would pause time and make the world go away for a little while. 

He reaches out to grip Stiles’ shoulder and opens his mouth, but the words get clogged up in his throat. 

Stiles drops his bag on the armchair and opens the thermos, pouring out steaming liquid into the lid that doubles as a mug. He takes a sip and then holds it out. “Coffee?”

Derek takes the cup and sips at it carefully, letting the warmth wash down his throat. 

They sit carefully, balanced beside each other on the hammock and finish off the entire thermos, cup passed back and forth silently. 

Stiles sets the thermos on the ground and then lays back, forcing Derek to do the same so they’re squished together, sideways on the hammock.

The sky is black, but the stars shine out brightly. Derek connects the shining dots and finds Cassiopeia and Hercules without even trying.

Beside him, Stiles sighs sleepily.

Derek licks his lips and tries again, drags the words out of his throat like rusty bits of pennies. 

“Thank you.”

Stiles turns his head to face him with a grin. “Was that painful?”

“No.” Derek shakes his head and turns onto his side, pressing his face into Stiles’ shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”

\---

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this really so I could just write the very last scene. :) And to make myself feel a little better. I hope it makes you feel a little better too.


End file.
